COMMENTARY

The Campaign Finance Problem

by Uriel Wittenberg

The Senate campaign finance debate excerpted here presents the world with a number of awe-inspiring elements:

• The specter, openly raised by several senators, of the great American experiment in democracy failing.

• The realization that democracy as it operates today in the U.S. enables an elite, by “hijacking” the government to serve its own purposes, to harm the welfare and prosperity of the great majority in order to increase its own wealth.

• The seeming paradox that this illicit wealth transfer has captured little attention, in a population of voters who hate taxes.

• The idealism of pro-reform senators, prepared in the name of democracy to offend patrons and revamp a system in which they personally have been successful.

• The pathos arising from the knowledge that a few days after this debate, the reform effort was defeated, for the fourth year in a row.

The U.S. suffers more acutely than many developed nations from a number of serious problems -- crime and violence, low educational achievement, inadequate access to health care -- all of which are amenable to government action. But campaign finance is the most important issue. It is “fundamental,” as pointed out in the Senate debate, since it is about whether or not the government will be motivated to properly address the other issues, and whether or not the attention and resources of the government will be directed towards the needs of the people.

The paradox of a government, by and for the people, facilitating the robbery of the people by a tiny elite has only one explanation: confusion. What is going on would obviously be impossible in daylight. What the U.S. needs to safeguard democracy is intellectual leadership.

What should such leadership deliver?

Clarity, first and foremost. Again, it is more than obvious that Americans do not hand over their hard-earned dollars to their economic overlords as a willing act of homage. A system that steals from the bottom 99% to give to the top 1% could never survive in democracy if voters had clear perception.

Substance: Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican who led the opposition to the proposed reform, is perfectly correct: “Where is the corruption? You cannot have corruption unless somebody is corrupt.” The problem as framed is too abstract to be effectively sold to the public. Given the scale of the problem described by the senators, it is surely possible to find some outstandingly colorful example of abuse that shows concretely what is wrong with the system.

Intellectual leadership should designate some specific government action -- a tax writeoff, a grant, a regulatory exemption, any kind of legislative favor -- as an archetypical example of selling out the public interest for private gain. The example should constitute more than a mere appearance of impropriety -- it is obvious from the debate that the issue is about more than mere appearances -- even if, as some senators argue, appearances alone would warrant reform. The example should be straightforward and unmistakable; there should be no plausible argument that it is socially beneficial; and preferably it should be big, so it can be shown to be equivalent to a vexatious tax.

Unity and focus among opinion leaders: Leadership means producing unity. Intellectual leadership, if successful, should as a first step unify as many individual public opinion leaders as possible. It is curious how, as senators discuss “the most important vote we are facing in this whole year of Congress, period,” most Americans are only dimly aware of campaign finance as a major issue at all. Pundits and commentators daily assail the citizen with dozens of issues warranting attention. Many, like crime or education, are far less abstract and far more accessible to citizens than campaign finance reform. Intellectual leadership needs to rally public opinion leaders, through rational argument, to the conviction that campaign finance is the priority. This means temporarily abandoning other issues -- gun control, drugs, health care, the environment -- in order to focus the message, maximize public awareness of the threat to democracy, and generate the necessary public demand for reform.

Promotion to the public: Academics traditionally assume a wallflower role where relevant public policy is involved. Intellectual leadership should motivate them to get aggressively involved in generating commentary on the issue, attacking misconceptions and distortions, and calling news reporters to account when they get it wrong. Democracy is at risk -- simply because insight is lacking. All intellectuals have a role to play in addressing the threat.